[leereeves]

It would also be unwise to blindly trust these institutions, or to grant them respect or credence as a whole without considering the problems and biases of specific fields.

And it should be remembered that the amazing gains in knowledge humanity has made have often been opposed by academia, as Max Planck observed: science advances one funeral at at time.

[ben_w]

If you trust it blindly, it’s not science, it’s a cult of title and rank.

Unfortunately, trusting it blindly is also necessary when you’re not active in the field. Even worse, nobody can spend enough time to be active in all fields.

I don’t know how best to balance Mr (formerly Dr) Andrew Wakefield versus Dr Ignaz Semmelweis.

[roenxi]

> If you trust it blindly, it’s not science, it’s a cult of title and rank.

A true but slightly inflammatory first line for something that everyone does. There aren't enough hours in a 70 year lifetime to make every decision using critical thinking - everyone uses title, rank and social proof for shortcuts.

My experience is that there are many people who claim to be arguing from scientific evidence when they are in fact not - and I think it is because they don't realise that (a) being smart is no defense whatsoever against using cognitive shortcuts and (b) thinking non-critically is actually likely to be a better personal strategy for most decisions.

[mistermann]

> Unfortunately, trusting it blindly is also necessary when you’re not active in the field.

This is technically not true. It might be a good idea in the aggregate, but it's not necessary in the aggregate, or necessarily a good idea in more specific scenarios.

[leereeves]

But blind trust is what this article is suggesting by comparing demands for evidence to "denial of service attacks":

> Quickly, the 80% can overwhelm the 20% with demands for explanations and evidence. ... Every minute spent refuting X takes away energy that could be spent refining Y.

Sorry, but providing explanations and evidence to the 80% is necessary. The fact that academia doesn't reward this behavior is a problem with academia, not with the people demanding explanations and evidence.

[dwaltrip]

I agree, blind trust is a dangerous thing. Healthy skepticism is important. However, we also have to choose which battles are worth fighting, and carefully evaluate when and where our skepticism can be most usefully and proportionately focused.